A Life of Praise: From the Sanctuary to the Streets Part 1

We don’t praise God simply because we’re commanded or called to. We praise Him because of who He is. If He were just a distant, powerful deity who was orchestrating the flow of time for only His own pleasure and entertainment, we may be justified in rebelling against Him. But that’s not who He is. As Dr. Timothy Brown will remind us in today’s message, our God is Almighty and possesses all power, yet He cares intimately for each of us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Truth for Transformation with Dr. Timothy Brown. You're about to hear a message from God's Word filled with biblical wisdom, practical insights, and life-changing truths. A message designed to inspire your faith and give encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Whenever it says praise God in his sanctuary, this word for God is the word El, and it's an abbreviation for frequently used in scripture names like El Shaddai, which is God Almighty, Elion, the Most High, El Roy, the God who sees. So the Who of Praise is the God who's trustworthy, the God who is mighty.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We don't praise God simply because we're commanded or called to. We praise him because of who he is. If he were just a distant, powerful deity who is orchestrating the flow of time for only his own pleasure and entertainment, we may be justified in rebelling against him. But that's not who he is. As Dr. Timothy Brown will remind us in today's message, our God is almighty and possesses all power. Yet he cares intimately for each of us. Prepare your heart, open your mind, and get ready to embark on a journey of faith with Dr. Timothy Brown in the book of Psalms, chapter 150, as he begins his message, a life of praise, from the sanctuary to the streets.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Welcome. We're going to be in Psalm 150. And of course, this is the last Psalm out of the Psalter. Hopefully, most of you took the challenge. We challenged everyone to read at least two Psalms of day. How many of you took the challenge this summer? All right. The rest of you who didn't raise your hand, you still can read the Psalms. It's really good. We're encouraging everyone to read through the book. So it's been a great blessing just to explore the highs and lows of life. Explore the majesty of God, how good He is. So in Psalm 40, a little background, I want to read a few quotes from scholars throughout history. Charles Spurgeon, the chief of preachers, as he's been known as, he says, Let the clash of the loudest music be the Lord's. Let the most joyful of all themes be our Lord's praises. Let us express praise as a rapture with the most exhilarating music, and we can never rise too high in our adoring notes. Spoken only like Spurgeon can talk. John Piper, modern day pastor, he says Psalm 50 calls us to praise the Lord with everything we have: voices, instruments, and breath. This is not just a psalm, it's an invitation to join the whole creation and the highest calling we have worship. Martin Luther, he says, this psalm instructs us to bring our whole lives into the presence of God. And this completes the song book. Psalm 150 completes a song book to all creations to join the chorus of creation in praising the Creator. I love that. And Alexander McLaren said this psalm is more than just an artistic close to the Psalter, it's a prophecy of the last result of the devout life. And in unclouded sunnyness, as well as in its universality, this proclaims the certain end of the weary years for the individual and for the world. So as we get ready for Psalm 150, are there anything that you need to praise God about in your life? How many of you are thankful that we got through COVID? Right? Some of you are like, it's still around. I know, but remember in 2020, how many of you were just coming to this church in 2020? This is the first time. This church was shut down in 2020. Like we met outdoors, back parking lot, under an open tent. How many of you were here under the tent? And what's fascinating is we know nationwide that the church has suffered since COVID, right? And church as a whole has been on the decline. But how many of you know God is still working? There's churches that are still growing. So even though we were shut down, we gained more people than we lost. And by God's grace, this church has more active attendees than we've had since the 1990s, and that's since COVID. God deserves a hand of praise for that, right? God is good. And I just want you to think about your life. Think about the challenges you've been through. Think about the things that Satan tried to do to put you out, but instead it sets you up. Whenever you're following God, whatever the enemy throws against you, God uses the setback as a setup. Whenever Satan tries to throw something on the white dress of the bride of Christ, how many of you know we have a jealous lover? He's going to come and he's going to fight for his church. So we are living in the last days, friends. Culture is challenging right now, let's say the least. The political arena is challenging. We see what's happening in our world, but this is the time for the bride of Christ to take its stand. The Bible says, whenever sin abounds, grace superabounds. So I'm just calling on you to praise God. I'm calling on you, no matter what happens, you have reasons to praise, to raise some praise. I'm gonna give the Lord a shout of a hand. Yes. So in Psalm 150, we're going to read six verses, and the word praise is mentioned 13 times. So when we walk out of here, no matter what challenges you came into with today, no matter what sorrow, no matter what obstacles you're facing, you're gonna have reasons to pray. So I've entitled this message A Life of Praise, From the Sanctuary to the Streets. So we're gonna read Psalm 150, and then we're gonna talk about what this life of praise looks like. Praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty heavens, praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his surpassing greatness, praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and the lyre, praise him with the timbrel and dancing. Is that the right translation? It does say dancing, right? All of our Baptists, brothers, but is that in the Bible? It's there, alright? Praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of symbols, praise him with the resounding symbols. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Someone say, Praise the Lord. And we know praise the Lord is hallelujah in the Hebrew. So we're gonna talk about this life of praise. What does it look like as we close this book of Psalms? There's 150. This final psalm tells everything. If you have breath, if you're alive, you have reasons to raise some praise. So, first of all, we have the who of praise. In verse one, it says, praise God, praise the Lord. So, first of all, praise the Lord. This is the word Yah, which is short for what? Yahweh. So we've got to praise the God who's trustworthy. Yahweh, whenever it's all caps and says the Lord, it's often the word Yahweh. And this means that we can praise God because He's the great I am of Exodus 3. God revealed Himself to Moses. I am has sent you. Who is I am? God is the sum total of all his characteristics. He is loving, he is holy, he is just, he's full of power, he knows how to handle your every problem. We serve a God who can handle it. Look at the person next to you and say you can handle it. Yes. Let's clap. Yes, he can handle it. This is Yahweh. This is the covenant-keeping God. So others may let you down. Family members may let you down, friends may let you down. How many of you know you may let yourself down, but Yahweh, covenant-keeping God, never lets us down. Not only is he trustworthy, but he's almighty. Whenever it says praise God in his sanctuary, this word for God is the word El, and it's an abbreviation for frequently used in Scripture, names like El Shaddai, which is God Almighty, Elion, the Most High, El Roy, the God who sees. So the who of praise is the God who's trustworthy, the God who is mighty. If I know who I'm praising, then I know that he's worthy of all praise. In fact, when Jesus came in as a triumphal entry, the religious leaders chided his disciples and said, Tell the kids to stop. And you remember Jesus said, if they stop, who's going to call out and praise? Even the rocks are going to praise, right? In other words, all of creation needs to enter into this choral, this symphony, this chorus of praise to the God who's trustworthy, to the God who's almighty. In John 4, 23 and 24, Jesus talking about worship. He's talking to the woman at the well. He says, The hour is coming, and now is when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Listen to this phrase. For the Father is seeking such to worship him. Did you know that God is seeking worshipers? God doesn't need your worship. God doesn't need your praise, but he delights in it. The Bible says that he's enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Whenever you raise praise, whenever you worship God, God is found in the midst of praise, in the midst of worship. So God is everywhere, but whenever you praise him, he can be experienced in tangible ways. Whenever you raise praise because of who God is, guess what? God shows up. So we have the who of praise. Next we have the where of praise. Someone say where? Where should you praise God? Obviously, we'd answer everywhere. But in Psalm 150, he lays out different locations. First of all, in his sanctuary. If you can't praise God in the local church, where can you praise him? Right? That's the easy one, right? It's easy to praise God at church. And as I've said in weeks past, we don't come to church just to worship. We should come to church worshiping. Like Sunday is the overflow of Monday through Saturday. When you live a life of worship, whenever you come into the sanctuary, it's an overflow of your life Monday through Saturday. So Sunday is when I come to overflow my thanksgiving to God. Where? Also in the mighty heavens. This is the heavenly course. Did you know that even while we're worshiping God here at Radiant Church, there's an eternal worship service going on in heaven right now. Isaiah 6, we get to peel back the veil, and we see cherubim. Throughout scripture, we see seraphim, we see holy ones, ones that are burning with fire, ones that are burning with passion, and they're saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. So we can praise God here, and guess what? At the same time, there's praise going on in heaven. And that praise never ends. It continues on as this chorus, this symphony throughout eternity, because God is worthy of all praise.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

You've been listening to Pastor Timothy Brown. We'll be right back with the message. But first, we'd like to share some exciting news with you. We're releasing Dr. Timothy's new book called Go After Jesus. This book is a fresh approach to discipleship and focuses on your identity in Christ as the launching pad for Christian growth. In Go After Jesus, Pastor Timothy paints the picture of the six identities for every follower of Christ. You are a seeker, a disciple, a friend, a fisherman, a warrior, and a lover. We're currently offering two free chapters of this book as a digital download. To get your free chapters, go to Dr. Timothy's website at drtimothybrown.org. Now let's get back to the rest of the message with Pastor Timothy.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

So we praise God in the sanctuary. This is worship in the streets. Notice it talks about the blast of the ram's horn, the dance, the clash of symbols. These are all public displays of worship. I don't know about you, but it's easy to worship in the sanctuary. It's sometimes hard to worship in the streets, right? It's easy to express how good God is right here because we're Christ's followers, but what about on the job? What about the grumpy boss? What about when you're in traffic and you have road rage? Is it easy to praise God then? Some of you are like, He's talking to me now, right? It's hard. But a life of praise overflows even into the streets. The other aspect is where in my personal life, Psalm 150, verse 6 says, Let everything that has breath do what? Praise God. So if you are breathing out, that just means that God has breathed in you the gift of life. And because you have breath, you have reason to praise God. Even if you have nothing else going for you right now, the fact that God has given you life. The fact that you're taking up air on planet Earth is evidence that God still has a plan for you. He hasn't taken you out of this earth. He has you here for a reason. Some of us may not know what that reason is, but one reason is to praise the Lord. Look at the person next to you and say, It's time to raise some praise. So that brings us to the why of praise. Okay, we talked about the who. God, he's trustworthy, he's almighty. Where? Well, everywhere. In the sanctuary, in the streets, in the heavens, and in my personal life. But why? Like sometimes if you're struggling, you got to give me the why behind the what, Timothy. I know I should, but give me some whys. How many of you are thankful that God has saved you? I mean, just think about that. He delivered you from a place called hell. He wrote your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. You have eternal life, and heaven is coming down one day, right? You read Revelation, this new heaven, new earth is coming down. And one day we're gonna live in a place where there's no more sickness, there's no more sorrow, there's no more pollution, there's no more traffic, right? I don't think there's gonna be road rage in heaven, right? I mean, think about salvation. Not only did he save you, but the Bible says when you became a believer, he gave you the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in you. And we talk about the mystery of the virgin birth, how Mary conceived Jesus, and how this was a miracle. And yes, it was a miracle, but what about Christ in you, the hope of glory? You have the person of the Holy Spirit. This is the third person of the Trinity, not the second person Christ, but it's a third person. And as a believer, you carry the Holy Spirit with you everywhere you go. And that's the encourager, that's the comforter, that's the one that's gonna lift you up when you feel down. Did you know when you don't know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit's praying for you right now with groans that words cannot express? Isn't it good to know you have a prayer partner who always prays in accordance to God's will? So you have the Holy Spirit, you also have the fruit of the Spirit. It's one fruit, nine flavors, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And some of you have said, Well, I don't have patience. If you have the Holy Spirit, you do have patience. It's just maybe in small form right now, it needs to grow, right? You have all of the fruit, but you have to let the Holy Spirit grow that fruit. So don't never say, I'm not patient. You are, patience just has to grow, right? And the fruits connected as I'm more joyful, then I'm more patient. Am I more patient, then I have more self-control. You see how it's all interconnected. One fruit, nine flavors. Well, it gets even better. Not only do you have the fruit of the spirit, but all of you have at least one gift of the spirit. Did you know that? God gave you at least one gift. Now, some of you have multiple gifts, but all of you have at least one. It's good to know what your gift is and what your gift isn't. As some of you have told me, I cannot sing, and I realize that. I do it for comedy sometime on Sunday, just to make sure you're still late. That's not my gift. Know what your gift is. All of us have a different gift. And that gift is not primarily to build you up, but it's meant to build up who? The church. Okay. So I'm saved, I'm set apart, I'm filled with the spirit, I've got at least one gift to the spirit. Is anybody feeling encouraged right now? You also have a family, right? Some of you may not have family that live in this area, but did you know you have a spiritual family composed of millions and even billions of brothers and sisters around the world? Did you know that you have family that are in heaven that you never met? They lived on planet Earth before you, but one day you'll get to meet them. You know, I I can't wait to talk to Peter. Peter, why did you cut that guy's ear off? Peter, why did you curse, right? How did Jesus restore you? Why wasn't it one strike you're out? Why did why did he restore you? Like Peter, stick your foot in your mouth, Peter. Like, what happened, right? So you're gonna like give example. How many of you sometimes get bored with the book of Leviticus? Raise your hand. All of us, right? Well, look, can I tell you some truth about Leviticus? All those names, those who not all of them maybe were of faith, but the ones who died in faith, you're gonna meet those, many of those names in heaven. The ones that you can't even pronounce. So there's a reason why they're in scripture. All of Scripture has a purpose. Well, I remember hearing about your name in Leviticus, and now I get to meet you. And that the best is yet to come. Just like Jesus in John 2, he turned the water into wine, and the governor of the feast marveled, and he said, You've saved the best until last. And that's the way God works. He gives you the goodness of God now, but then he saves the best for last. So that's the why. So all of you should have some reasons why. I should praise God because he's good and he's done great things in my life. I should praise God because he alone is worthy of my devotion, my adoration, and my worship. And by the way, the name worship, the word worship, easy way to remember, is worth and ship. It's anything you ascribe worth to. So I should raise some praise. I should raise some worship because he is worthy. So we talked about the who, we talked about the where, we talked about the why. And now we're going to talk about the how of praise, the ways of how we praise God. In verses three through five, the psalmist calls all the instruments together. And it's like every available instrument: brass instruments, string instruments, wind instruments, percussion instruments. And there's a chart on your listening guide. I don't have time to go through it, but you can tell there's a lot of research gone into that chart. But look at it on your later this week. It describes each instrument in the Old Testament, what they were used for, their purposes. So what I wanted to do in the time we have today is summarize like, okay, how should we worship God? How many of you have ever been into a worship debate of what style of worship's appropriate, right? Can we have drums on back there? Is it okay to have lights? I mean, is smoke wrong? Is lights wrong? And people have all these questions. And do you know that Christians will debate this until Jesus comes? Right? But can I tell you, even as we listen to instruments, it's not so much about the instruments, it's about the heart behind it. The psalmist is saying that your heart should be so captivated by the Lord, you want to use every positive thing at your disposal to worship God. If it's a trumpet, if you're a trumpet player, I'm gonna blast the trumpet. If I'm a dancer, I may not do it right here, but I may do it in private before the Lord, okay? Like whatever I have, I'm gonna bring my full self as a praise of God. Because guess what? God made you, He also created your personality. And there's many ways that God accepts praise. So I want to kind of give you five things. This is on your listening guide. Number one, my praise should be a celebration of victory. Notice it says, praise God with the blast of the shofar. This is the trumpet blast. The shofar was a signaling instrument. It would signal to war, it would signal victory, it would signal, hey, pay attention. There's a big announcement. So whenever you have the shofar, it was a call to attention. It was a big announcement. So when I praise God, it's saying that I should celebrate what he's done. Do you have any shofar moments? Do you have any moments where you just want to tell everyone? Maybe you post it on social, hey, guess what? Celebrate with me. Look what the Lord has done. Some of you have those moments. Those are moments to praise God. The celebration trumpet moments. Number two, my praise should be a response of reflection and worship. Notice it says praise God with the lyre and the harp. That's the guitar in the harp. So think about this. What response do I have to God? What things have I thought about in my life that maybe it takes a little bit more meditation, but I should praise God? So you see, you praise God for the big things, but you also praise God for the little things that aren't little to you. And they're not little to God. The little things in life, like God, thank you that I still have a job, right? Thank you that I still have my health. Thank you, God, that I can still see. Thank you that I can hear. Whatever they may be, we all have different ways to praise God. Some of you might thank you, God, I have a car, right? Thank you that I have a house. Whatever it is, we all have different things to praise. My praise should be an overflow of joy and excitement. And for the third point, this is going to challenge some of our intellectuals, analytical thinker, that some of us that are, how many of you would say, Timothy, I'm just not as emotional as, say, my spouses, right? All right, half the people would raise their hand if they're being honest, right? I'm just not as emotional. One wants to raise their hand for that. But think about it, praise God of the tambourine and dancing. When's the last time you got a tambourine out and started praising God? Anybody want to be honest? I can't remember the last time, maybe with my kids, right? So why would I bust out a tambourine and start dancing to praise the Lord? Well, it's the idea that I want to express my emotions back to God. I want God to know how good and how faithful He is. And I may do it in private. You know, oftentimes this was, you know, you read in the Old Testament, even as they were coming back from the war from war of the women, we get the tambourines and start dancing and celebrating. That was their way of praising God, right? So we express this in different ways, but my points with style of worship. Be careful before you criticize another church and how they worship God.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Thank you for listening to today's edition of Truth for Transformation with Dr. Timothy Brown. We're in a series called Summer in the Psalms. The Psalms is a very interesting book for many reasons. For one, it has many different authors. King David wrote many of the Psalms, but also Astaph and the sons of Korah wrote some of them. Solomon wrote a couple of Psalms, and Moses even wrote one. Psalms is a collection of songs gathered together to use in Israel's public worship. It was the hymnal of the time, the original hymnal. There is so much inspiration to be found in this book. We're encouraged to praise God for who he is and what he's done for us. The psalms are an example of how we should thank God for our many blessings. Psalms also show us that we're given permission to bring our grief and pain to God. We get a glimpse into the hearts of God's people and their devotion to God. And when we sing our songs that find their inspiration from the Psalms, we follow in their footsteps. If there's something that has touched your heart from today's message, or if you have a question, please reach out to us. Join us in prayer as we strive to live out God's mission for us. You can find us on social media at Dr. Timothy Brown Ministries, where you can share your thoughts or just say hello. You can learn more about what we do at drtimothybrown.org. That's also where you can contribute financially to our ministry. Your giving fuels the mission. Thanks for joining us on Truth for Transformation.